Survey: Developers Trend Toward OSS, Web

Evans Data Corp., a research firm covering IT development, recently released the results of its semiannual Global Developer Population and Demographics Survey, which combines census data from around the world with online polls conducted by the corporation. Beyond providing a snapshot of the climate among developers, the survey projects developer population and demographics through 2009.

The survey noted that 6.8 million developers worldwide are using open-source software (OSS) with adoption strongest in the Asia-Pacific region and weakest in Latin America. It found the heaviest use of OSS still in scientific and engineering fields, but corporate developers show increased strength in OSS adoption, with close to 65 percent using it.

In technology profiles, wireless development has room to grow.

“We consider wireless still a very immature market, with penetration being less than 30 percent,” said John Andrews, president and principal analyst of Evans Data Corp., which projects the industry focus among developers will trend toward the Web. “More and more developers are doing Web development, as you might expect, so that’s a trend that we don’t see abating. And we see more developers going into e-commerce development.”